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Hoping you saw this post too! I posted two in a row, which in hindsight, I realize might have been confusing for you.
Lyndie
Minny Pinny Directionals
You might recall that he was a whizz kid when it came to the original minny pinny game, except that he was clipping bars a bit. He seems to have found his feet, as I didn’t notice that today at all.
Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/OgOwayfCsk4
I showed you his stay progress at the end of this video. We are practicing it in various settings, and I can tell he is finally really understanding it. Hooray! Will keep playing with it a bit more before I add it to other challenges, but I can see the path forward!
Thanks,
LyndieZig Zag
I’m still avoiding the games with challenging wraps while we work on the reinforcement loops, but I wanted to give the boy a break from that. The new week 3 ZigZag and MinnyPinny games looked like some he might rock, so that’s what we worked on today. And he did great. There was a brief session in which my video camera couldn’t recognize its blooming battery — he did really well, but no one gets to see it. Then, another short session later in the day in which, magically, the camera could recognize the very same battery.
Here’s the ZigZag portion: https://youtu.be/__lp1f0X9qU
Reinforcement Loops:
We have been focusing on shaping reinforcement loops over the last week. Multiple sessions with the board that you’ve seen just rewarding his offering a move away. Then rewarding hitting the board like you saw at the Friday seminar. When we had some distance on that (~10′), I switched to a cone and shaping the wrap with me starting close to the cone again like I did with the board. I’ve played with multiple rewards: a toy in my hand, food in my hand, and food in the MM. In the meantime, separate from “training sessions,” I’ve been working a lot on toy play with him…..trying to keep him engaged in tugging with me, and we have been making progress there.
Here’s today’s session with the cone. My plan was to focus on the same rewards listed above and see if we could get a bit more distance from the cone while retaining the wrap. As you will see, he changed things up for me a bit by selecting a different toy for his reward than the one I had selected. So, given the toy he selected, I added in a thrown toy reward, and he liked that a lot!!! The reps you’ll see on this video are his very first in this game with a thrown toy. Not my favorite toy as it is huge and unwieldy for me, but I wanted to reinforce his engagement today.
You’ll also see that I was varying my “start” behavior a bit from taking a step forward to send him toward the cone to standing pretty motionless and just seeing what he would offer (MM portion).
Let me know what you think about all of this!
Thanks,
LyndieCongratulations! Your latest message has sent me down the verbal option rabbit hole. LOL! As I better understand the steps that you have in mind for this loop, and in particular that you want me marking and rewarding the decision to offer looking and moving away from me, I am realizing that I can’t use “Yes”, because I use “yes” interchangeably with the clicker itself as a marker. Like, in situations where I don’t have my clicker. And that is pretty hard wired at this point.
So, I’m going to use “Aye-Aye” (synonym for Yes) for the reward from my hand.
Like you, I am using Get it and Catch for thrown rewards.
I also sat down and typed out a list of all of my verbals and what they mean so that I can keep track and remind myself for “cleanliness.”
See you tomorrow morning in the brisk wind chill!
Lyndie
Shaping & Reinforcement
To me, what you’re suggesting sounded a lot like the pre-game for this weekend, so I did a session today with the object I was planning to use for the pre-game (a short piece of leftover lumber).
I started with a tug toy that is pretty high value for him, given that he is not at all toy obsessed. Then switched to food, which he found more difficult at first, then back to the toy. I used a clicker and my voice to make his engagement with the board. I realize that I totally failed with keeping my tone of voice the same, and I am a lot more dynamic with my verbal praise when working with the toy than with the food. Also, I am probably muddying the verbal marker and the verbal praise. Need to work on this.
Let me know what you think of this.
Thanks,
Lyndie
Video LinkWrap Proofing:
In light of all that I described in my previous post, I was a bit concerned about whether this game was going to be too challenging for where we are. I was pleasantly surprised! He was playing happy and confidently in this segment!
BTW, if you see a difference in his demeanor between previous video and this one, it might be the “party can effect.” As we were finishing the wind in hair game, the wind blew WM’s party can off of the fence post. Because he is a pandemic puppy to his core, his party can is an old disinfecting wipes container. The party can fell off the fence post, and when it landed, the tab that would open to let wipes come out came open. WM grabbed the tab, and proceeded to have the most joyous party of one galloping all over the field, spraying Cheerios everywhere he went. I’m so very sorry that my camera wasn’t facing the right direction to capture this. I could not have planned this better if I tried. The party can instantly went up in value x10! And when people ask the secret to my turf grass management on the field, I will have to confess that it is not just Labrador aeration, but also Cheerio dust!
Lyndie
Wind in Hair:
I need to provide some context for this. You’ll recall that near the end of the last MaxPup session, we were struggling a bit with wrapping in the rocking horse and related games. This continued in large part for a few weeks, even when I did the various things that you and I had discussed. My sense is that his cerebral nature and perhaps some developmentally-related crisis of confidence and his food motivation/obsession interacted to create anxiety over when and how his rewards would come. I really think I wasn’t providing the level of reward clarity and consistency that he needed. I stopped working on handling with him for a while and gave him a couple of weeks to just be a puppy. Then, I started “doodling” with him on the field with really simple things like cones and a tunnel, with high rate of reward, tons of toy partying, treats, etc. And that seemed to help, but he was still obsessively watching my hands for food instead of looking where he was going.
So, about a week ago, I started using something we’d used with my daughter’s dog early on – a “party can.” This is a derivative of the “Chair Game” in Leslie McDevitt’s Control Unleashed. Basically, a container of high value treats sits on a chair/bucket somewhere near our training area, and when it is time for a reward, we run together to the party can, make a freaking festival out of it, and he gets treats. The point is to make it really, really clear to him where and how the reward is coming, and to get him to stop fixating on my hands and more on his line. We’re a week into this, but I see his confidence growing. That said, I am being very conservative about how much I ask of him both in terms of task complexity before a reward comes and in terms of # of reps.
All of this has me feeling a bit like I’m unpacking our previous training and putting it back together, and that is fine. But the process is definitely not linear.
So….now to this game. I wanted to try it with a toy instead of the party can, but I didn’t do a lot of reps. I’m using a collar grab for the initial wrap, because that seems to help him maintain his momentum around the wrap object for now. I’m showing you the reps where he just stopped and asked WTF? And early on, from this camera angle, I see something I haven’t noticed before. When he stops instead of wrapping, I think he’s looking at the toy I’m holding behind my back. I noticed this during training and started holding the toy differently, which I think helped.
I’ll be bringing the party can with me on Friday, so you can see how I’m using this.
Thanks for reading my book length commentary!
Lyndie
Thanks. This all makes sense. I agree that it will be good to have someone hold him while I get out ahead. Unfortunately, my assistants have all been otherwise engaged in their own sports recently. Go figure. We can try this at the seminar on Friday or I can try with family this weekend as we’ll all have some down time together and sunny weather at the same time. 🙂
Setpoint:
A teensy bit better holding the sit. You won’t be able to tell this from the video, but I am waiting to release him and cue the MM until I see his eyes leave me and look forward.
Pretty consistently, he seems to be landing really close to the second jump bump. Should I move it a bit closer for our next session?
Thanks,
LyndieSet Point:
We have no stay. I tried for a while, and he wasn’t having any of it. He’s quite motion sensitive. Phyzz was the same way and didn’t have a stay until he was probably 15 months old, and you know what? The sky did not fall. So, I’m being very zen about it. I come back to it every month or so to see if his headspace can compute what we are doing and proceed accordingly. Recently, I see glimmers of comprehension, so we will try more over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, we improvise.
Here’s our first set point session with the MM. Do you think the jumps are far enough apart?
https://youtu.be/K6X4Yk08XFoThanks,
LyndieHi Tracy. The week 11 games don’t seem to have links to PDFs like the other games do. Will you add those? This helps my OCD methods for organizing training info. 🙂
Thanks,
LyndieMinny Pinny
On the first few reps, I clicked out of habit. And I saw his reaction to the click and clipping the bar, so I stopped. He still clipped some bars, but I think it got better as the session continued.
Also, not on video, I tried your suggestion about sitting with treats and C/T the wrap while I was fidgeting with my hands and treats. It went really well. Great suggestion…thank you!
Lyndie
Rockinghorse
Just a little rockinghorse game with a mama and a puppy mostly on the same page 🙂 in a different environment and with different objects.
Minny Pinny:
This was totally hilarious to me. After the recent barrel wrapping challenges (and breakthrough!), he started wrapping this mini pinwheel even before I was ready! Because just like baby goats climb on all the things, they go around all the things! LOL!
He seemed to have a really easy time of it without bars, so I jumped ahead to adding them in the same session with some toy play in between. You might call this this minny pinny, but I think Wingman calls it Easy Cheesy!
Thanks,
Lyndie
